Heap Earth Upon It, page 5
She sat permanently at the foot of Mammy’s bed for those nine months, and has not forgiven Tom. I doubt she ever will. I doubt he particularly cares, when he accomplished what he set out to do: bury the shame of Mammy’s transgressions deep, deep in the ground. She lived for seven hours after Peggy was born. Tom refused to call for a priest or a doctor.
And while he might feel some regret for the way he treated her during her last months, I can’t imagine his stance on the whole thing has changed much. A part of him will still be ashamed of her.
I was never particularly close with Tom again; until you died, and he was one of the few people who could take my weight. My forgiveness in exchange for his support. It got us past a rough patch. It’s bringing us back to each other.
When I think back to that time, I remember the stress of being found out the most of all. Voices in the pub asking where Mammy was gone. Rumours that she was in hospital, or in hiding, or with cousins in Tipperary. Father Lynch peppering his services with the outcomes for unmarried mothers, the fate of bastard babies. Our feeble attempts at pulling together a story, wondering whether it was easier to lie for Mammy or just cast her aside. I wish I knew you then. I wish you had been around, to be good to my mother in the ways that I never was.
We never found out about Peggy’s father. Whoever he was, he never owned up to it when Mammy was alive, so what good would it have done him to own up to it when she had died? I had my suspects, of course I had, but my nerve always buckled before I could confront anyone. Anna has still never acknowledged that this man exists somewhere in the world. As though Peggy was born of some immaculate conception. As though our mother wasn’t capable of sin. That’s the sort of attitude that Mammy wouldn’t have discouraged. That pregnancy really was made to be the shame of her life. She was the pious sort of woman who might have seen dying in childbirth as a harsh, but ultimately fit, punishment. It’s all so heavy to think about. ’Tis times like this I would like to find a bit of solace in god. Oh well.
‘Put on the radio there, Peg.’
I say, unable to cope with the silence anymore. Unable to think anymore. Let me be the child’s father. I’ll look after her. She leans into the radio, fiddling with the dials, trying to escape the static.
‘Era Tom, that thing is fecked.’
‘Why don’t you fix it, so?’
The form is bad. Maybe tomorrow, I could go down to the town with him, and we could inquire about renting a television. Then, we could bring the whole world into our house, and bring ourselves into 1965, and leave everything that has passed behind us. I think Tom would be glad to hear that I want to come into town with him. I think they would all be glad to get a television. Maybe I’ll ask him now. If everybody gets riled up over it he won’t be able to say no.
But just as I open my mouth to speak, he puts out his fag and gets down on his knees, and calls us for the rosary.
‘Would anyone go down to the pub?’
I ask, willing to go and socialise to avoid praying.
‘We offer this rosary for our father, Joseph O’Leary, on his birthday.’
With steel in his voice, he begins his show. I’ve no choice but to get down on my knees and join him. And the girls have no choice but to follow me.
This ritual puts me back in your house, something I know I’m better off avoiding. Praying the rosary or the angelus, with one of your sisters leading and your father taking it all at a different pace to the rest of us. Ivory candle lit and dripping. White rosary beads from Knock Shrine passing through your fingers. Cream walls. Yellow flame. All leading me back to blonde.
I open my eyes and find myself very much in Ballycrea. Anna grits her teeth. The sky behind her churns. Peggy quickly closes her eyes and lowers her head, hoping I didn’t catch her. Praying every word so carefully. I wish you hadn’t taught her that. Lately, Tom has her saying extra prayers every night, trying somehow to wash away the guilt of her birth.
I wish that I had something else worth teaching her. A shame I never took on a hobby or a trade. But I never needed anything like that before. It was always enough to go out in the van with Tom, and down to the pub with the boys, and call into you in the evenings. I didn’t need to know anything when my life was perfect.
You were the one who knew everything. Happily teaching Peggy to play the fiddle, and keeping Anna in the group with your friends, always calming her down. Indulging Tom in his deep conversations, making him feel clever. And giving my small life meaning.
We reach the end of the rosary, and while Tom remains in silent prayer, Peggy opens her eyes again and looks to me. She wants to be told that it’s over.
The poor child is exhausted, but she won’t go to bed without the rest of us. I suppose she might be afraid in the new house. When I nod at her, she rushes off her knees and to the sink, where she strokes the chicken.
‘How about that drink?’
Anna says, reaching for her handbag. I forgot that I offered to go to the pub.
‘There’s a bottle of something behind the oats, I’m sure.’
Now that I don’t need to get out of praying, going to the pub is the last thing I want. Somebody has to bring Peggy to bed and clear up after the dinner. I know Anna never asked to be a mother, but she is the nearest thing that Peggy has to one. I wish she would act like it. It’s disappointing that she hasn’t taken to the role better. It’s a shame that I cannot be everything that Peggy needs. She deserves a proper mother, not Anna’s cold indifference, not my male shortcomings. Little Peggy, my Peigín. She deserves an awful lot more than she gets.
Anna sighs, seemingly upset we aren’t going out. Since when does she want to be out and about? I can’t keep track of her. All I want to do for the evening is think of you. It’s terrible, and I’m sure you’d hate it, but all I do is think of you, darling. Of you in the morning, and you in the afternoon. You in your black dress, that used to move like water around you. You sprawled across the sofa, your knees apart, forgetting your manners. Of where you are now, and where you are not. To tell the truth, I think of you far more than I ever did when you were still here. So much that sometimes, it’s like you never left. If I put my hand out in the air, I swear I almost feel the swell of you against it. I remember you so, so well.
Or rather, I remember you often. And I worry sometimes, because I can’t be sure which of my memories are true to life, and which are just lovely exaggerations that I have conjured up to keep myself going.
Let me say something awful. Sometimes I wonder if I love you more now than I would if you were still here. If your memory is a better woman to me than you ever really could be. Because a memory is a very easy-going thing, you know? A memory can’t be let down, and it can’t let me down. I loved you, sure you know I loved you, I just wonder if I love you better now.
You’d kill me, but if you were here now, I’m sure that I’d forget to appreciate you. I would probably have my head turned by pretty girls now and again. I’d probably stay out drinking with the boys and leave you at home, alone. I’d spend money where I shouldn’t, and I would disappoint you. What had we, two summers together? Two years. Long enough to know you were my soulmate, not long enough to make a mess of things. Oh, all the beautiful ways we would have let each other down. Isn’t it silly? I want so much to have the chance to disappoint you.
Anna
A lace curtain of fog is pulled over the town. It makes it hard to know what time it is. It must be about two weeks since we arrived in Ballycrea, because we’ve been to confession twice and the market twice.
Tom puts a bowl of veg down for me to wash, humming to himself. He seems to get happier every day. I wonder how happy he will get before he bursts.
While waiting for his enthusiasm to infect me, I pass the time watching the way the light changes on the fields and feeding oats to the pony. It doesn’t really make me happy, but it keeps me going.
I’ve started walking down to the town with him; to pass the time, to stop him from asking. I’ve come to accept that we are in Ballycrea to stay. At least until we get a car, because the only way I’d go back over the Healy Pass on the pony and cart again would be in my coffin. But sure I haven’t even a bed at home, I’ve no hope of seeing a car pull up anytime soon.
I haven’t let Tom take the pony out again. ’Tis all cars now, he knows that. Everybody else has one. Why shouldn’t we have the fine things that everyone else has? Why shouldn’t we have the life that Tom pretends we have? He better get a bit of work soon, so that he can buy us things, and stop humming around the house with all his happiness, and leave me alone.
As deeply as I dreaded it, being in town is okay. I don’t mind it. There isn’t a great deal in the town to mind, to be honest. A few pubs, a few shops, a tailor and a little library, all of which double up as people’s homes. The convent on the hill, thick, broad walls that you couldn’t penetrate with a cannonball; each window a dark eye, watching. A lot of grey and white houses with colourful doors and windowsills. A man fixes some eroded bricks with cement. A woman waters pink flowers in hanging baskets outside her door. They’re keen on improvement, it seems. I could find reasons to dislike it, but really it’s no different from any other place. Wherever we ended up, I would have felt this way, homesick for a place that is no longer home. This is home now.
Something I cannot get used to is the fish. Boats with chipped paint and half worn names bringing it into Ballycrea every day. Big crates of it on the pier, lofted raw through the town, wafting their sea smell all around. Imagine how bad it looks when I gag as the fishermen walk by. I’m meant to be blending in here, assimilating with the locals and their ways, not bringing up bile as they pass.
It’s just that I’m not used to fish, that’s all. We usen’t ever have fish in Kilmarra, not even on a Friday. Mammy was allergic to the scales, or so she said. I never questioned it. I never questioned her; not about anything. But it’s what’s popular here, and so Tom insists that we buy fish today.
‘When in Ballycrea, do as the locals do.’
My god, he is incessant. I let him into the fishmonger on his own. I can’t imagine how well I’d fare in there. It strikes me that I never walk around the town; I always wait outside whatever building Tom is in. They will think there is something wrong with my legs.
The fish is wrapped in paper and landed in my hands, and I can do nothing to get rid of it. I wonder how much he spent on it. This reeking dead thing, heavy in my arms, no doubt leaving a smell on the sleeves of my coat. And even though this is a fish town, and they are all eating it every day, I’m embarrassed by it. They’ll all think the smell is off me. Imperfections aren’t charming on me the way that they were on you. A dirty face or sweat stains were things that you somehow managed to make endearing. I’m sure if you were here now, smelling of uncooked fish, it would only add to your appeal.
Just when I think it’s time to go home, Tom stops us, insisting that he introduces himself to Brendan O’Donovan, who he wishes he had spoken to the other night.
A flock of pretty women pass me by, as I am suddenly left alone in the street. And I feel each of their eyes move over me. Strawberry blondes and brunettes, all a little bit younger than me. I want to go where they are going. I want to be one in a two, and I want to know what they think of me. Let’s not bother with all of the reasons that I’m one on my own. As they pass me by, in their perfect, shiny pairs, I feel more lonely, more embarrassed, than I have for a long time.
It reminds me of you and all your countless friends. It was so rare to catch you on your own. Wherever I saw you, at the window of the butcher’s, in the doorway of the pub, from the field behind your house, there was a sister or friend in your shadow. I was so embarrassingly insecure to see you in constant company, and to be a solitary thing, viewing it all from a distance. I can admit that now.
Those passing, pretty women remind me of all the friendships that I’ve misplaced. Those close connections that always fell short of lasting. Where are all of those girls now? Do they remember me ever?
Before they are out of sight, one of the women turns to look at me again. Only a quick glance, but I feel a bolt of urgency strike me. I want her to know I’ve caught her looking, to dethrone her, to humiliate her. I pull a face at her. It’s all I can think to do. How juvenile. But then, isn’t she juvenile too, walking around with her clique, staring me down? She turns away, probably unsure if I really did pull a face, or if she’s just imagining it. I bless myself and say sorry to the air.
The boys have told me that tunnelling this far into my thoughts doesn’t do me any good. I’m always being told what not to do, without being given alternatives.
Tom comes back after talking to Brendan. At long last, we make our way home, the road rising and dipping below us so frequently that I feel I am out on the sea. The big dead fish in my arms does not help.
‘I met Bill Nevan there with Brendan. Did you meet him the other night?’
He asks, fully knowing I won’t remember who Bill Nevan is.
‘He’s going to call up this evening with his wife. They’ll eat dinner with us, we can play cards maybe. A dinner party!’
A dinner party? ’Twas very far from dinner parties he was reared. Where does he come up with it? I don’t know how to respond. And then I realise that even if I did know, there wouldn’t be any point in responding. Tom has made his plan. There is no backing out now. These strangers will come to our home and judge us and inspect us, and I will have to make them feel welcome while they do it.
As I sit down and try to write out a plan for the evening, I feel Jack’s heavy eyes on me. Staring at me. Or perhaps, staring through me. Perhaps he was already deep in thought, focused on some point in the distance all day, and I sat in his eyeline. I write down what food I know we have, and try to think of a way to stretch it to dinner for six people. The house gets dim around us. We don’t have enough of anything, really, unless we all have slightly different meals. Outside, Peggy is shrieking, laughing, playing with the pony. If she would only shut up for a minute so that I can think. If I could only get a break from Jack’s staring.
‘That’ll be beautiful.’
Tom says, tapping the wrapped fish with his knuckle. And I realise that Tom intends to serve the fish for dinner. If I could only get a break from his relentless happiness and his big notions. If the three of them would just leave me alone.
And then, an unwelcome wave hits me, and I feel that the menstruation I have been dreading and unprepared for has arrived, late. I would have been worried if I wasn’t so laughably single.
Wordless, I take myself to the bedroom. I lean against the closed door, so that none of the others can follow me in. What good are two brothers and a child to me now? It can be so hard to be a woman without the company of other women. I’m not sure you ever knew what that was, with all your friends and sisters.
I remember wanting so terribly to know your cycle; to make my own less alienating, just to avoid any trouble, just to feel close to you. Just to have something shared between us.
But it was just another thing you wanted to keep from me. Wasn’t it? Just another way to put space between us. And how you loved your precious space.
Maybe it sounds stupid to you, but you don’t know what it would have meant to me to feel like somebody was on my side while I was aching and bleeding and alone. Remember, I never had a flood of sisters or friends. I didn’t have anybody. But you knew that, didn’t you?
How pathetic, I still don’t have anybody. Soon, I will need to explain all this to Peggy. Where to begin? You would have done it so gracefully, so easily.
I remember once spying a bloodstain on your bed, and you asking me not to look in your room anymore. Oh my god, I loved you so terribly. Even bleeding, I adored you. I remember the day Jack told me you were pregnant.
The shock of it all. The dread and the fear. The isolation of knowing that I really would have to bleed on my own. That horrible cycle, beginning again.
Jack
A stupid idea. I’ve warned them all that this is a stupid idea. But Tom is nearly doubled over with the desperation of having people up to the cottage. To show off how well we’re doing and prove what a wonderful family we are. To confirm to himself that people like him. It doesn’t matter that I don’t want the Nevans calling up; it’s all about Tom. Isn’t everything? When people include him in a round in the pub, he thinks it’s because they are dying for him to drink with them. In Mass, he likes to think that people are shaking his hand because it’s an honour. When they say ‘peace be with you’, what they mean is ‘good man, Tom’. He would have invited anybody up this evening. The Moores, the Doyles, any eejit who was willing to be hauled up the hill and sat down at our table. And the Nevans are the fools who said yes. As if we don’t have enough to be tense about. It’s pure Tom to draw people on us like this, into our home. Right into the eye of the storm.
‘Nobody helps me in this house.’
Anna says under her breath, hoping to be heard. Since she came back out of the bedroom, she has been like a dog. Fighting with Tom over the dinner, screeching at Peggy to get out of the kitchen. Wanting to be pitied, I’m sure. But not actually wanting any help, because then we couldn’t pity her. She is scrubbing a fork, trying to take all the worn-in stains out of the handle.
‘I can help, Anna.’
Peggy says, crowding her. Any minute now, there will come the threat of the wooden spoon. But Anna takes a steadying breath.
‘Not now, Peggy. I haven’t the patience for you.’
